


head in the lion's mouth

by transcendencism



Series: death to bioware timeline [3]
Category: Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic (Video Game)
Genre: Brief mention of Cannibalism, Gen, Jedi & Sith getting so close to getting along but then the Jedi has to fuck it up, Pre-Star Wars: The Old Republic, Quest Re-write, Scene Re-Write, Sith Academy Culture, The Sith Academy, The Sith Empire, as Jedi do, mentions/occasional descriptions of torture, sort of??? i guess?? lmao tags hard, takes place just a few years before the "class story", though i guess technically it still IS a part of kyaiit's class story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:00:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28250520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/transcendencism/pseuds/transcendencism
Summary: The jailers don’t give her so much as a second glance, possibly mistaking her for a slave heading to clean up after the latest interrogation – to the Sith, acolyte robes don’t look so different than a slave’s uniform when an alien is wearing them. Today, it’s to her advantage.Tasked by one of the Inquisitors for a special mission, Kyaiit contends with her new purpose as a Sith acolyte.
Series: death to bioware timeline [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1979875
Comments: 7
Kudos: 15





	head in the lion's mouth

**Author's Note:**

> this is one of my favorite quests on Korriban & in trying to figure out Kyaiit's character, THIS happened.

**8 ATC**

It doesn’t feel right to return to the jails; Kyaiit warily watches the figures that pass by her as she heads down the long hall, her mind drifting to the last time she’d came here. The name of the acolyte she’d interrogated escapes her now, she vividly remembers the unpleasantness of rending out cries of pain from him, but the inquisitors assured her that her hesitance would fade. It’d have to, otherwise she’d find herself in a world of trouble. The stench of electrified, fried skin haunts this section of the Academy, and as she comes closer, she hears the telltale scream of a mind finally breaking under pressure. If she still possessed any sense of self-preservation, she’d turn and walk back the way she came. But if she did so, Inquisitor Urinth would either send her right back or accuse her of treachery.

Now she can only hope that the inquisitor will cover her if she’s discovered. The jailers don’t give her so much as a second glance, possibly mistaking her for a slave heading to clean up after the latest interrogation – to the Sith, acolyte robes don’t look so different than a slave’s uniform when an alien is wearing them. Today, it’s to her advantage. Cautiously, Kyaiit turns the corner and heads down the long line of cells; most of them are empty, but she soon finds her target kneeling on the floor, murmuring a repetitive mantra under his breath.

As she nears his cell, the words become clearer. “There is no emotion, there is peace,” repeats over and over, almost as if trying to pull every last drop of strength and comfort out of the words. Entrenched in his meditation—she imagines this is what Jedi meditation looks like—he doesn’t notice Kyaiit approach his cage, and it takes a small kick against the bars to get him to look up. His eyes, blown wide in shock and pupils dilated from the drugs, rush up to meet hers. The words die on his tongue, and Kyaiit shudders at the sensation of him _looking_ ; not looking upon her physical body but probing at her through the Force. His prodding is sluggish and unrefined, unbalanced by the drugs, and she shakes him off with ease.

“You’re—” he swallows roughly as his voice breaks from disuse, “you’re not one of the inquisitors.”

“Not yet,” Kyaiit replies, “I’m in training.”

His mouth pulses like a fish out of water as he considers. “Oh,” is all he says.

Kyaiit’s stomach twists. Torture by Force lightning seems easier than being reduced to _that_ ; if she were given a choice, she’d rather preserve her humility.

It’s not for another long minute of silence that the Jedi speaks again. “What are you doing here?”

She attempts to smile; it might reassure him or make her seem less threatening. Judging by his shoulders drawing to his head, as if tensing for a blow, she figures it doesn’t help. “I’m here to get you out of here.”

The Jedi, though addled by the drugs, is not stupid. He squints at her and pushes himself up from his knees. Kyaiit refuses the instinct to step back from the cage. In his present state, he shouldn’t pose a threat to her. It won’t help to give him the perception that he can do otherwise. “You’re _Sith_ ,” he hisses the word out between his teeth and makes a face as if it left a bad taste in his mouth, “why would you want to help me?”

“Maybe I’m in a particularly altruistic mood.”

His frown deepens.

“That’s the truth, you know,” she continues. “The torture you’re enduring is unnecessary; the inquisitors know you’ve no information left to give, but they won’t let you go because you’ve seen too much here.”

“So, they’ve kept you here. They send in acolytes to test their prowess in interrogation and wring whatever they can out of you, only to leave disappointed that there’s nothing else you can say.”

Kyaiit surveys his face carefully. The frown is still there but diminished in its severity; glassy eyes stare down at her boots rather than her face. She experimentally shifts one foot, and his eyes do not follow it. Inquisitor Urinth wasn’t specific on the kind of drugs used in the Jedi’s interrogation, but Kyaiit concluded it had to be something to inhibit the strength the Force lends one to resist mind probes or deceit. The side effect, as Kyaiit sees now, is a near complete lack of awareness of the physical world, as if his tether has been cut and he’s sent drifting endlessly in space. It makes one open to suggestion, blind to deception.

And the truth in her words is that this is in of itself a test. It feels more than only coincidental that Urinth singled her out and gave her this task; Inquisitor Zyn’s final comments to her before she left her last assessment crawl under her skin, creeping up to hide in the corners of her eyes that she dares not turn to.

It’s one thing to strike a body with lightning, to set nerves on fire and make muscles spasm and dance. It’s another thing entirely to look into the unfocused, drunken eyes of a hapless prisoner and tell a lie under the guise of promising help.

“I don’t think this is right,” Kyaiit says, very quietly. Even she does not know what she’s referring to: the Jedi’s situation, or her own trickery.

The Jedi’s head tilts back up to look at her. “You’re … you’re here to help me.”

The key turns in the lock. “Yes,” she answers. “I’m here to get you out of here.”

A few moments pass as he processes, and she watches as he slightly wobbles on his feet. She nearly tells him to sit back down lest he fall. “You mean that. A Sith with a conscience.”

Kyaiit smiles, not to reassure him but out of genuine amusement. “You’ll find that I’m full of surprises.”

He grunts and furrows his brows at her, but it does little to dissuade her grin. He finally relents, crossing his arms over his chest. “If I want to get out of here, I’ll need my belongings—my lightsaber, my commlink.”

She mirrors his pose. “Oh, I’m sure you won’t do anything _stupid_ with your lightsaber.”

“Attacking you would be foolhardy,” he quickly replies matter-of-factly, “even if you’re only an acolyte, I don’t think I’d fare in this state.”

“At least you’re honest.”

The Jedi frowns again, but there’s no hostility in it. “Before I was captured, the Sith chased me into the tomb of Tulak Hord. I hid my belongings in an urn; you’ll find them there.” He shuffles on his feet, still looking at her uncertainly. “You’re really going through with this, Sith?”

Kyaiit waves a hand dismissively and turns from the cage. No longer faced with his sad, bruised face, she finds that it’s suddenly easier to breathe. “Have some faith in me, Jedi,” she says over her shoulder.

It’s a relief when she can _finally_ leave the jails.

* * *

Kyaiit isn’t a big fan of tombs.

Spending almost an entire decade of her life digging up ancient weapons, tools, pottery, and a menagerie of other treasured artifacts lost its shine after the first few digs, and the digging got _miserable_ on dusty, sand desert planets like Korriban. It had a cruel way of coating your lungs, choking every breath, and unpleasantly eroding the throat.

Fortunately, inquisitor training kept her away from the tombs as of late, though Kyaiit cannot say she prefers the dark, ominous Academy halls much better; they certainly aren’t any safer. What shocked her when she first came to the Academy—it probably shouldn’t have, she’d been assigned to Sith overseers before—was the casual attitude about murder: so long as no one saw your body hit the floor, or who put it there, it was hardly taboo. More of an _inconvenience_ if anything else. At least in the tombs, your death is taken note of, even if it was only scavengers like k’lor’slugs and shyrack looking for a quick meal. In the Academy, you’re an inconvenience and a liability, and your body feeds nothing.

(Well, there was a rumor of a thing in the tombs that ate dead acolytes, but no one had ever seen it.)

Eventually, she finds the sunlight filled exit into the open-air atrium of the Tomb of Tulak Hord; she shields her eyes from the glaring sun as she steps out into the cold, dry air. Crawling over the atrium are the rebelling slaves and deserters from the Korriban regiment, some on guard, others clustered in circles talking amongst themselves.

With a hushed breath, she draws the Force tight around herself as if it were a cloak, and she begins picking her way through the courtyard unperceived. The sand shifts uncertainly under her boots, but Kyaiit keeps steady. The Jedi mentioned an urn, so she keeps to the temple wall on the border of the area until she comes to a slope where, to her satisfaction, she finds the vase fitting the Jedi’s description.

She drops the cloak and plucks the urn off the ground, only to frown when it’s suspiciously light in her hands. Reaching in, her fingers brush only dusty air. “Damnit,” she curses. In vain hope, she turns it over to see if anything falls out from the bottom. No, nothing.

Unceremoniously, she lets the urn slip from her hands and shatter on the ground; it’s only junk now. She steels herself and draws her staff, obscured in the Force once more.

* * *

It’s about half a dozen dead slaves and troopers later that she returns to the Academy with the Jedi’s lightsaber and commlink tucked at the bottom of her satchel; her “mission” for Inquisitor Urinth is still largely a secret, and should she be discovered carrying the Jedi prisoner’s belongings … to put it simply, things would not end well for her. The Inquisitor would not defend her.

Dust and dirt tracks from her shoes as she enters the dark, looming halls with her staff hanging heavy in her hand. Her lip still stings from where one of the troopers had busted it with his rifle, and she imagines her face is marred by a myriad of purple and blue bruises. Thankfully, the lip is the worst of it, and what remains is the bone-deep exhaustion that begs for a long few hours of rest.

She shifts her satchel on her shoulder.

The walk to the jails is even longer than when she was last here, and it isn’t made any shorter by the sharp eyes that roll over her as she passes them. The staff and the bruises dissuade questions, but they don’t deter any stares; Kyaiit wills her feet to go faster, just for a little longer.

She turns the final, familiar corner and finds herself back in the jails; they’re eerily silent, with the day’s interrogations completed and the prisoners left to nurse their wounds in their cells. Some that were previously unoccupied now contain cowering, quivering figures she can’t quite make out, as they shrink back from her as she passes.

Kyaiit walks faster.

“Sith,” she hears the Jedi say when she finally reaches his cell, a mixture of relief and surprise. His dark eyes are clearer, more alert, and he almost looks _happy_ to see her. “Did you…?”

“You doubt me?” Kyaiit tries to tease, but her voice falls flat.

The Jedi _laughs_ : it’s quiet, but he laughs. Here, on Korriban, the Jedi is laughing. “I suppose I shouldn’t have.”

She opens her satchel and digs her hand past her own possessions to the bottom where her fingers curl around the cool metal of the lightsaber. Turning it so the emitter faces the Jedi, she passes it to him between the bars. He accepts it gratefully and clutches it tight between his hands like it’s something precious. From what little she knows, the Jedi care a great deal about their lightsabers. Next, she finds his commlink and hands it to him before closing her satchel and nervously adjusting the strap on her shoulder. “Is that all you needed?”

“Yes. When the guards change shifts, I think I can make it out. Will you be okay?”

Kyaiit’s throat tightens; her guilt threatens to choke her, but she swallows around it. Will she? There’s no telling if Inquisitor Urinth will betray her, if this was all an elaborate ruse to get her excised from the Academy. She couldn’t deny Urinth’s task, and so this ending was inevitable, so perhaps that question is entirely unnecessary. And, more importantly, what would he care?

Quorian is still looking at her, and his deepening concern exaggerates the lines in his face.

“I am Sith,” she whispers, almost inaudibly. Her stomach turns. “You should get going.”

“Of course,” he replies. He looks down at his lightsaber thoughtfully, then his eyes return to her. “I’m sorry the Empire took you in, instead of the Jedi,” Quorian says, then quieter, like he’s thinking out loud, “you don’t belong here.”

Her cheeks burn, her eyes sting, and she spits, “I am _Sith_ , there is nothing your Order could do for me.”

Quorian’s shoulders sink, and he nods his head. “Right,” he murmurs. “May the Force be with you, Sith.”

Kyaiit turns her back and storms out from the jails. She doesn’t look back.

When Urinth sees her, her mouth curls into a predatory smile and fixes her with a sharp glare. Kyaiit draws the Force closer around her, as if she might simply pass under Urinth’s gaze unseen. But the Inquisitor grabs her shoulder and, still smiling like a nexu ready to consume its prey, asks her of the Jedi.

“He’s preparing his escape,” she reports, “and is none the wiser.”

“Excellent work, acolyte,” Urinth preens. “When he returns to the Jedi, they’ll be led astray, and Korriban will remain safe.” Sharp nails curl tighter around her shoulder, pricking her through her tunics. “You’ve impressed me; to be honest, I wasn’t entirely sure you’d succeed.”

Kyaiit sets her lips in a firm line. “I try not to disappoint, my lord.”

The claws finally release her, but Kyaiit doesn’t allow herself the relief of stepping away; not until she’s dismissed. “That will get you far, acolyte.”

In spite of herself, Kyaiit then asks, “will Quorian be okay?”

Urinth’s pale yellow eyes turn hostile. “No Jedi will ever be safe, not for long.”

Kyaiit breaks her gaze to glance back towards the jails. Quietly, she mumbles, “I understand, my lord.”


End file.
